Railroad girder-rail and rail-joint



\No Model.)

A. J. MOXHAM.

RAILROAD GIRDER RAIL AND RAIL JOINT.

No. 316,994. Patented May 5 1885.

NNNNN as mmum w. Wnhingicn. o c.

NITE STATES Arum QFFICEQ ARTHUR J. MOXHAM, OF JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 316,994, dated May 5, 1885.

Application filed June 14, 1884.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ARTEUR J. MoxHAM, of Johnstown, in the county of Oambria and State of Pennsylvania,have invented a new and useful Center-Bearing Girder-Rail for Railroad or Tram Oars, which invention is fully set forth and illustrated in the following specification and accompanying drawing.

The object of this invention is to simplify and cheapen the construction of the tracks for railroad-cars or tram-cars, principally for the latter, by reducing the weights of the parts or pieces composing the track, and so distributing the material as to preserve at the same time sufficient strength, rigidity,'and durability.

The method of securing these rails in track and the advantages of such construction will first be described, and the invention itself then set forth in the claim.

In the accompanying drawing is shown a center-bearing girder-rail having upper side flanges and a central web terminating in a filleted base, the rail being entirely devoid of lower flanges.

In said drawing, the letter A indicates the head of the rail; B, its web; 0 0, angle splice bars or plates; D, splice-bolt, and E nut securing same. The splice-bars G are each provided with rounded or convex shoulders, as shown at s, which fit over and clamp the concave lugs or fillets formed on the lower ends of the webs B, as shown at f. The dotted lines indicate the continuation of the side lines of the webs B, which side lines may be so continued, if desired, instead of being filleted out, as above explained, at the points f.

The advantagesof the construction above described will now be set forth.

If the rail be made entirely devoid of lower fillet or flange, as indicated in dotted lines, as above explained, some special means must be used or devised for securing the rails to the cross-ties and to each other, (the advantage of using such a rail will be hereinafter explained;) but by providing the lower part of the'web with the lugs or fillets f for the shoulders s of the splice-bars O to flt'upon, the angle splice-bars O at the same time serve the purposes of'both joint-bars or fish-bars and of lower flanges to the rail. If desired, however, plain splice-bars or fish-plates can be vused at (No model.)

the joints, and the angle-bars above described then used only as side bars or lower flanges to the rail, and such arrangements offer many advantages in providing flanges at the cross ties, for the perfect bearing and clamping at the points f s at the base of the rail and also under its head by the head of the anglebars will re-enforce the bolts and aid in making the flanges so built up strong and durable. This form of angle-bar is also so largely used in other cases with lower flanged rails that this part of the combination can always be obtained at a low and well-established market price.

By the use, as above described, of these angle-bars, either alone or in addition to plain fish-plates for securing the rails in track, the cost per mile of such track will be greatly reduced, not only for reasons hereinbefore given, but for the further reasons as follows: In rolling girder-rails with a wide lower flange or flanges it has been found extremely difficult to secure a width of head of from four and three-fourths to five and one-fourth inches, such as is required in common American practice. It is feasible to roll a rail out of an ordinary sized ingot or bloom, if the head does not exceed the lower flanges in width, and if the width of neither exceeds three or three and one-fourth inches; but anywidth greater than this is obtained by means of a dummy pass or passes-the ordinary means employedonly upon either the head or the lower flanges of the rail, but not upon both, for the dummy pass can only act upon either one or the other, never upon both. In rolling the rail from an ingot or bloom square or rectangular in section it is obvious that the metal to be displaced in forming the web is much greater than that displaced at any other point. Now, in effecting this displacement of so large a bulk of metal, so much wire-drawing, as it is technically called, unavoidably occurs that it is impossible in practice, by reason of such wire-drawing of the metal, to exceed-the limit in width of head and lower flanges above mentioned, of three inches, or thereabout. Furthermore, in the use of the dummy pass, it has been found in practice extremely difficult, if not impossible, to secure a well-filled and regular contour of the lower parts of the trams, as at y y, with an even and regular width of head at the same time. Extensive practical experience has proved (the reasoning in support thereof involving much technical explanation is therefore omitted) that in rolling an ingot or bloom of ordinary commercial size said ingot or bloom must be so much pinched to spread it in the dummy passes in order to fill out the desired width of head that enough metal is not left to fill out the trams at 3 y, as above indicated. If the rail be rolled like that shown in the drawing, either entirely devoid of lower flanges or filleted near the bottom of the web, a width of head of five and one-fourth inches, or even a greater width, which may frequently be desirable, together with a perfectly filled- W out contour of rail at every part, can be obtained by first rough-rolling an approximate trilobe section from the bloomvor ingot and afterward finishing in suitable passes to the correct form. Such rolls I do not herein claim, but reserve for a separate application for other Letters Patent.

I am aware that narrow grooveheaded rails have been proposed devoid of lower'flanges, and such I do not claim; but,

Having thus fully described my said improvements, as of my invention, I claim- As a new article of manufacture, a girderrail provided with side flanges integral with the body of the head of the rail, and formed therefrom into side tracks,for ordinary wheels of street-vehicles, above a central web terminating in fillets, as ff, substantially as and for the purposes set forth.

A. J. MOXHAM.

\Vitnesses:

A. MONTGOMERY, LEVI BARNETT. 

